Chaos / Accidental Physical

I never thought I'd ever know -- you know --

life --

I never thought I'd have it all figured out.

I never thought happiness was a thing that would come to me.

I never thought I'd ever know -- you know --

just knowing, like, absolutely,

any one thing.

I never thought I'd ever be quite sure.

I mean, this is just to say, I still think this way.


It rained the day I went to Alcatraz. Not real rain, more like mist. Everything was wet and foggy. Well, that's San Francisco for you. Sometimes. I took pictures in black and white.


There was a time when my feelings were directly connected to my fingers and it would all come pouring out. There was a time when I wrote without my own critical eye. And it was good. Remember. Now it's a journey through a checklist of metaphors, narration, imagery, concrete imagery, quantity, point of view, conceit, no abstractions, and sense, does it make sense. And the words don't quite make their way out.


Summer is a time for getting drunk. But I want to get drunk in October. And I want it to be cheap and easy. I want to shiver. I want to be looking for a good time do you know when I last looked for a good time. I don't know when. I want to get drunk in October and I want the sky to be black and I want the beer to be disgusting because it's two for $6 Boreale and I want to dance in a dirty hipster bar with young dirty hipsters wearing neon tights and neon sunglasses to dirty hipster DJ playing LMFAO before LMFAO was cool I want to dance like I don't give a fuck that I'm dancing with my backpack on like I don't give a fuck that I'm dancing like I don't give a fuck like I don't give a fuck like I don't give a fuck 'cause I don't give a fuck.


And the words and the words and the words. They're never ending. And they don't quite make sense. There's no need to try and piece them together.


Always sitting there trying to name the feelings. Separate them, label them, explain them. And always the questions when I'm not ready. I don't know yet. And I might not ever know. Maybe leave me alone forever. Maybe leave me alone indefinitely. I can't articulate. I'm not ready.

And I am so spent. And I am so exhausted. And I can't see anymore. Beyond myself. I can't say just what I mean. I don't mean anything. I can't articulate.

And now I shrug my shoulders. And now I am alone. Why articulate?



All we want, baby, is everything.


This body grew like a tree from the earth. This body wants food. This body wants water. This body wants touch. This body wants space to stretch its legs. This body is sorry about some things but not about others. This body is sorry for pushing Tino in first grade gym class but not sorry about being angry. This body is physical. This body and other bodies. This body and the accidental physical. This body is full of insides and outsides. This body is full of spaces for the metaphorical abstract. This body is science. This body is art. This body bleeds every 27 days. This body has a literal heart. This body remembers some things but not others. This body remembers the taste of another body that had just consumed beer and marijuana. This body does not know what it has forgotten. This body and the accidental physical. This body cannot make sense of what is not part of it. This body can count. This body is not sure if it's put its feelings in the right place. This body cannot actually see inside itself. This body does not know what's going on inside itself. This body can see outside. This body can't see in the dark. This body is protein. This body is carbohydrates. This body is vitamins. This body created itself. What is this body but a tree grown from the earth, and every spring there is rebirth.







What happened to the days.

What happened to the things I had to say and then forgot.

Today is the day I listened to "Good Woman" by Cat Power for the 121st time.

if i were on the titanic i would lose my brains

k. made me watch 'the titanic' last night til 1am --

what the shit is that movie even about

and why do i know half of the lines by heart?

of course afterwards i had to wikipedia 'the titanic'

and read the whole damn thing --

of particular interest are the rich and famous who died.

then k. and i had a debate about whether or not

it's better to drown or burn in a fire.

i said 'burning in a fire sounds more painful

but drowning causes panic and chaos

and if i were on the titanic i would lose my brains'.

she said 'i'd rather die of hypothermia'.

i said 'it's funny that 10 years after this movie,

james cameron staged his comeback with 'avatar',

another poorly-written huge piece of crap,

and then he lost 'best picture' to his ex-wife kathryn bigelow

who also became the first female to win 'best director' at the oscars'.

we both agreed we were never going on a cruise ship.

Winter of Self-Destruction 1.0

Earth, I am in crisis, and you don't give a shit.
This is the winter of my self-destruction.
On the metaphorical road of life,
I have wandered off into a field
and am standing there like a lonesome cow.

Loneliness, you're enormous.
I'm drunk and you're taking advantage of me.
There isn't anyone here. I am taking advantage
of myself. Oh no.
My past and future selves are fighting again.

I am in crisis. I am as lost as Kim's bike,
locked to a pole somewhere in the city or
the dusty brain corner of forgotten things.
Earth, if you can remember where I am,
now is a good time to take me home.

Loneliness, you're enormous.
This is the winter of my self-destruction.
I am lying down now.
I am staring at the sky now,
wondering when it is going to snow.

something hiding for us in the night

[something hiding for us in the night - the wooden sky]

i know i already posted this song 2 years ago when i first saw the wooden sky in montreal. but i'm posting it again because i just saw them play on saturday, and i this is my favourite song by them.

i was thinking about how the wooden sky is one of the bands that i've seen play most often in my life. it's not a lot; 3 out of the 4 times they've been to montreal in the last 2 years. but i went with the same person every time, and that's kind of a nice a feeling. i was thinking about how just because i'm doing the same things i did 2 years ago doesn't mean i'm not different. doesn't mean i haven't changed.

i'm scared that i don't change. i mean, i always worry that i'm not growing, that i'm making the same mistakes over and over again. but i have changed, and i do change.

yeah, i'm different now. it's okay, you know. i'm talking to myself. it's okay.

and if that mean old city gets you down...
i'll be around, i'll still be around.

sometimes when i have anxiety

domenica,

sometimes when i have anxiety i check your blog to see if you've written anything new. sometimes i don't even read it, sometimes i just skim, like, it's a comfort to just know that you're out there, thinking of things. i think of this now, at 1 in the morning, skimming.

i'm worried that i'm doing it all wrong. 'it' being life.

i know there's no wrong way, but i'm scared anyway. like what if it's just like before. 'it' being this year. there are histories about me that you don't know, intricacies, and stories so delicate i become angry at them. i can't stop thinking about her. from before i met you. all the things i did so wrong i'm scared i'll do again. it has nothing to do with you at all, but it just seems like you're here right now, so i'm mentioning it. briefly, this feeling.

it seems like you're here right now, close, where i can trace your own delicately outlined histories when i get scared, slide inside your skin,

so i let you slide into mine:

it's just that fear doesn't only come at night anymore. it's there in the morning, too. domenica, my eyes are burning from the screen. i'm scared to go to sleep. i'm scared of the light i'll see when i wake up.

mouth sound

to say this word out loud

say this out loud

as i always am when i come here

i am confused

am i good or no good?

good/not good?

is this an act or is this

real life?

i feel

so much

anxiety

it

makes

me

want

to

.

one who does these things

one who does opposite things

i cannot compare myself to

one who speaks out loud

their own words

I think the idea that I can't have everything infuriates me

I think the idea that I can't have it all drives me insane. Why can't I take 18 credits and have a job at the same time? Because that's insane. Why can't I learn the things I want to learn? What did I come to university for? To be a writer. Oh yeah, to be a writer. That's what I said before I came here. I said I would be a writer with or without university. But aren't I writing right now? Isn't anyone who writes a writer? Oh, but to be a good writer. Ah, well.

Here I am. I want everything. An apartment with a living room for fuck's sake. A job that doesn't take everything I am for minimum wage plus 10cents. It's nothing. It's something. I feel broken.

If I don't like it why do I do it? If I demand better what does that make me? Insolent, maybe. Ungrateful.

Can I get some quiet? I know, I know, I know. It's just this day. But I can't be quiet. I can't turn me off. There's always someone in there, knock knock knock, right, she says, why can't you have it all. And then another, you have too much. Oh, help. You'll never have enough.

Oh, and I want and I want and I want it all.

[the temper trap - fools]

thoughts

so peel peel peel back the layers to find the same thing. it took four years to grow backward, to say look i did the circuit and now i'm back, look

look, i climbed the mountain and it was just as lonely on the other side.

hi so this is the new year

hi i'm oscar here to bring you a very special message about life which i know a lot about despite only being 7-9 months old.

firstly i don't even know why i have to say this because everyone should know this by now but open bars are a bad idea. the number one rule of life is "don't be too drunk" and open bars result in a direct contradiction of this rule. alcohol is this very silly thing that makes people think it is a good idea to text their crush or jump on the subway tracks or get naked in public.

secondly emily is lying in bed like a dead person because she violated the number one rule of life and she lost her earrings. maybe she should do the dishes or put on some pants but she just can't. now she is suffering the consequences of her actions which i do not approve of because if you come home and have to shut the door so the cat can't get in your room because you don't want him to see you then you are probably doing something wrong.

thirdly emily's number one problem in 2011 which i know a lot about despite not being alive for the entire year was anxiety about other people. i think this is stupid because emily is a smart caring person who always feeds me on time the best that she can but for some strange reason she is overcome with crippling doubt/panic/anxiety that other people think she is something other than what she is. although she doesn't really know who she is so she is also often confused and convinced that maybe she should be who other people think she is or that maybe she is already that person and or that she is a person entirely created by other people's perceptions of herself and what is free will anyway? she's not sure she has to think about it more.

from autostraddle.com

fourthly i been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things and i just have to say that i just don't understand people. i mean what are these portable telephone things that keep bringing drama into everyone's lives. here is a cat's advice: stop drinking (so much) and stop drunk texting. i like it better when people read books in bed instead of texting in bed because paper tastes better. i like to chew paper. also everyone thinks that looking a certain way is very important but it's not really. dogs are colour blind so they don't even know what you're wearing anyway.

in the end it doesn't matter who kissed who last night or that emily's eating processed cheese on a burnt bagel right now. she just wants what we all want: free delivery on new year's day. 2011 was a great year because i was born and 2012 will be even better because i will be there for all of it and there is so much opportunity for snacks. 2012 is the year of snacks.

thank you drive safe,

oscar

are there snacks out there

"don't become the thing you hated" or how to be a giant asshole

[destroyer - don't become the thing you hated]

what if the thing you hated becomes the thing you love? what then? do you love it or hate it? what if doing the thing you love interferes with the reasons why you love it? what then? do you still love it?

you like the feeling of being good at something. you like familiarity, you like feeling important, and most of all you like the idea of something perfect and tangible, and you know if you have it all away it would be fine and you wouldn't cry. but you can't destroy the desire for that which isn't possible and accept what you get with a smile. because then who would you be? would you be who you wanted to be? who is who they want to be? if you love the thing you hated and then became it does that mean you're who you wanted to be? if you love the thing you hated and then became it and then you ate it... does that make you full? of shit? 'cause you lied to all your friends, and you can't look them in the eye. so you hide underground in the metro and they never see you anymore, and you never see them. you lied to everyone and you can't admit you changed and you'd rather be used and wasted than nothing at all. and you hate yourself for being the coward who lied, the lying coward who lied and lied and lied and became the thing they hated. in the end, it turns out, you're just an asshole.

(via)

disposable myths

"don't you ever for a second get to thinking you're irreplaceable." - beyonce

i've seen you before. don't worry, we are all children looking up for validation. i know you don't want to feel special, you want to be special. you are so helpful. you are always there. you are so kind, so loving. you want equality so long as you are the equal one. i've seen you before. don't worry, you always get what you want.

here's what i think, though. you are completely disposable. we are all completely disposable. one body is replaced with another (how absence is easily replaced by another body that makes the same motions, and then it's fine i guess) is replaced with another is replaced with another. how the giant world makes us feel so small, and the tiny world makes us feel so small. you are in denial about your dispensability, 'cause it hurts doesn't it. all we wanted was to feel like someone needed us. i mean, me. wouldn't it be nice to feel like someone needed you, but actually you, you you you? turns out nothing needs us. you're flushed.

but don't worry, because it's completely alright. see, here's the thing. you are not the first nor the last to do the thing you're doing. someone will most certainly accomplish the same things as you, and don't worry because someone already has done it before you. someone has already made your mistakes, and someone will make them again when you're gone. so that's it. you are not the first and you are not the last. you are a cog in the machine, you are not a cog in the machine. you are free.

Life Lessons I Learned This Weekend

1. Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans

I feel like you can try and be really prepared for things but life is just going to happen anyway, and it doesn't care what you planned for. I think you kind of just have to lie in the middle of the road and hope that cars don't hit you. Or maybe that is really stupid.

2. I am in a false world

These are not my pants. Where the fuck am I? This is not living. I think possibly this "living" thing is just "dying really fast".

3. Everything in my life is completely and totally dramatized

4.We are not the people
Who are the people? I don't know, but we are not them.

5. Dreams are not real

Is it Sunday already? I had a good dream last night.

when you wait for the dawn to crawl through the screen like a burglar to take your life away*

I am a 20 year old getting my BA in Creative Writing with a minor in Political Science and yeah, I know those are two completely different things.

My therapist told me there are steps to becoming [x]. Like there are steps to becoming anything. Like if I want to be a writer then I have to do this this this this this this and this and this like everybody else and then I will be a writer. And if I want to be something else then I will have to do all the steps to become that. I said I feel like I should be doing more things right now. I said my life feels boring and like a habit. My therapist said what did I expect I am an undergrad I am doing all that I am supposed to be doing right now.

I grew up thinking there was a world of possibilities for me. I could be anything. Anything! Anything in the whole world! When I was 12 we had to present a project to our class of what we wanted to be when we grew up. I wanted to be a hockey player. I told my teacher I didn't need to learn math because I would be a hockey player and I could pay someone to be my agent and do that shit for me. I wanted to go to the olympics.

Then I learned that women cannot (yet) be professional hockey players (unless you're Hayley Wickenheiser (but you're not)); they have to pay to play and have jobs on the side. Or, really, have a job and play hockey on the side. And there are 80 trillion people in Canada who play hockey, and ~23 players on the olympic hockey team, so, yeah, you do the math. I can't.

Anyways, the moral of that little story is that I learned I can't be just anything. So in high school I decided I wanted to be a writer, which was the other thing I was good at. I liked to write fiction but I really wanted to be a poet because I loved to read and write it. Cool, but you know where this is going right. The moral of this story is that I can write poetry but I can't be T.S Eliot (toilets) and I had good ending for this sentence but I can't remember it.

Blah, blah. That's depressing, yada, yada. But I'm still doing what I like to do, which is nice. Only now, instead of being confident that YES I WILL BE A MOTHERFUCKING WRITER LIKE JK ROWLING i am terrified by the statistics and the idea that I will have to work a part-time job at American Eagle to make rent because only 5 people will read my poems and only 1 person will buy it because everything is available online for free. And I am terrified that I'm only average. That my writing is mediocre. That I am good, but just "good", and not like, Irving Layton Award Finalist good. You know? Ever felt like you were just "average"?

I was wondering, as I left my therapists office, when adults lose their sense of possibility. When is this shift from thinking there's more than one way to do things, to being convinced that everyone who doesn't walk in a straight line is lost? I feel like I am on the cusp of maybe realizing that I do need to do this this this this this this and this and this to "become" a "writer". And I'm doing it? I am totally following this nice little path that's been paved for me. Is a BA is the new high school diploma? What is life?

Part of me is trying to cling to this idealistic rebellious free-thinker hopeful defy-all-odds mover shaker dreamer achiever view of the world. Is the 'real world' a box that, once you go inside of, you can never get out of?

Katrina dropped out of college but she's one of the smartest people I know. And when she writes, she has 10 times more stories to tell than I do. See, I want to be a writer, but I don't have much to say, which might be a weird thing for me to say as I've had this blog for over 2 years now.

It all just sounds average to me. Like everyone else feels the same way as me and we are all going to write the same thing.

*bukowski wrote this

Identity Crisis #2: Hair

The last time I got a haircut was in the middle of August on top of a roof by professional hair cutter & stylist Laura Wooley Mammoth and I was half naked. Look, here is a picture from that same day.

my hair stylist and I are closepersonalfriends.

I usually get my hair cut every ~3 months as my hair grows fast and it is also short which means that I have to cut it in order to avoid the shaggy dog look. But this year I moved out of my parents' house and September, October, November, and parts of December happened and by that I mean my life disintegrated to the point where I was a frumpy mess of clothes lying in bed wondering if I actually existed. In between this and trying to spend as little money as possible, I seriously considered letting my hair grow out. I have not had long hair since I was 17. Mostly every time I think about growing my hair out, I think about the shaggy dog phase and then decide that I don't want to do it. In November I asked for a haircut for my birthday, which I didn't get. I don't remember what I was thinking at the time. I think I just couldn't be bothered to get a haircut/didn't want to spend money on it/wanted my professional hair stylist to do it until I decided that I wanted to grow my hair long enough for a full ponytail and then cut it off.

Okay, most of that is bullshit.

Here's what I noticed when I first cut my hair back in grade 11: people started calling me 'sir'. I have never been called 'sir' until I cut my hair. I have to make a bit of a stretch to see where people get confused with my gender, but I can see it. I get it, kind of. One might say that I have an androgynous face. I don't know. Some people are surprised when I tell them people call me 'sir', some people are not.

I also noticed that when I got a fauxhawk I got called 'sir' a lot more, especially at work. This led me to wear v-necks and boots with heels more often.

You see, this is the truth: part of me is afraid I am growing my hair out because I want to "pass". I'm afraid I'm doing it for the wrong reasons. Semi-consciously I've tried to pass at work because let's face it, it's fucking awkward when customers realize you're not actually a 'sir'. I've spent most of my life wanting to fit in with the "normal" kids, but I could never wear the dresses or heels or 234 different kinds of make up. But I could have the long hair. Right? A teeny tiny part of me wants to be normal.

But really, I want to be a person who is not afraid to be herself. Sometimes I am. I want people to recognize that there is more than one way of looking like a girl. I don't want to pass.

On the other hand, I want people to see that lesbians can have long hair.

On the other foot, I don't want my hair to be my identity. Does anyone really care about my hair that much. So while I sit here pondering the meaning of my existence my hair is growing longer. It's in a ponytail and it's really cute, if I may say so myself.

The other truth is that I will probably cut it all off and run rampant like a good angry queer feminist with a radical homosexual agenda and sweet combat boots. JK about the combat boots.

A Story With Two Morals

I went to bed last night around 11:30 and woke up at 1am with some serious stomach pain. I thought that if I rubbed my stomach it would go away, but it didn't. It stayed. It stayed for hours. It hurt to move. I sweated and moaned and rubbed my stomach and I'm pretty sure my roommate would have thought I was masturbating if he had been awake, but I wasn't masturbating, just dying. I think I died over one hundred times last night.

I tried desperately to think of what was causing the pain. It can't have been the cereal I ate. I ate it all the time and never had such a terrible stomach ache. It must've been the carrots I had at dinner. They were kind of old. They had smelled okay and looked okay and tasted okay, but thinking about it now they were probably rotten and eating me from the inside.

As the pain continued to exist, I began to panic a little bit. I considered calling 911 but I didn't want to wake my roommates. I've been watching Grey's Anatomy a lot and I imagined Dr. Arizona Robbins feeling my stomach and saying "abdomen is hard, order a CT" even though she's a pediatric surgeon and I'm not a child anymore.

She can operate on me anytime. Then maybe after we can do this -

Erm.

Anyways, I was basically delirious last night. Even though I've been working on a few different blog posts about how much I like my room in my apartment ("my space"), I really wished I was at my parent's house. If I had been at my parent's house I would have knocked on their door and made them take care of me. Living by yourself means you have to be responsible and take care of yourself, I understood that, but last night I really understood it. I didn't want to throw up, not because throwing up is gross (it totally is), but because I didn't want to clean it up. If I had been with my parents, they would have cleaned it up. THE JOYS OF PARENTING.

I have no idea what was wrong with me. I thought briefly about googling "how to fix serious stomach pain" but I couldn't do anything but lie in my bed uselessly. I thought about eating some chalk (in the 9th grade I learned that eating some chalk is essentially equivalent to taking some pebto bismol). I'm not sure how much that would have helped. I fell asleep for real around 4:30am after spending most of the past 3 hours clutching my stomach in the fetal position, convinced I was dying of twisted insides.

The moral of the story is: even though being independent, and responsible, and taking care of yourself like a motherfucking adult is a good thing, sometimes it's nice to let other people take control. Sometimes all you want is someone to spoon you and squeeze out all the pain. There are people out there who want to do that for you, so you have to let them. Even though in this case there wasn't really anyone to help me. Also the other moral of the story is: don't eat rotten carrots.

it's kind of quiet here in my cave.

there were many things to do

today.

somedays, not so much.

i bought nice clothes

to get a nice job

hoping it will pay for itself.

we'll see.

i am obsessed

with a cheese grater.

i must have a kettle

to make tea in my new apartment.

get me a frying pan

STAT

and please,

if you care about me in any way at all,

please

tell me it's going to be okay.

i hope the bank

will accept 47 dollars and 54 cents

in nickels and dimes.

i hope you know

that i would carry

the weight for you.

i hope you know

that there is an ocean inside of me.

it takes an ocean not to break.

we'll see.

Things The World Is Trying To Convincing Me Of

+ I have breast cancer

+ I have brain cancer

+ My body is eating me from the inside out

+ I don't exist

+ I will never complete a full to-do list

+ I need therapy

+ I need to eat healthier

+ I need to exercise more

+ My breasts are going to be saggy

+ Getting old is the apocalypse

+ 25 is old

+ I need to grow up

+ University is a waste of time (why does the world convince me of this?)

+ University will get me a job

+ We're all going to die in 2012

+ Everything is going to be fine

+ Mo' money, mo' problems

+ My plane is going to be hijacked

+ I need to have children

+ There are too many children

+ I need to be more cultured

+ I need more money

+ STOP PANICKING

+ I need to panic

+ I can be anything even superman

+ Good things come to those who wait

+ Seize the day

+ I don't know enough

+ I'm lazy

+ I know too much

+ I don't read enough

+ I'm going to get cancer from smoking, second-hand smoke, using my cell phone to call people, microwaves, hair dye, x- rays, asbestos, bottled water, chips, genes, deodorant, chinese food, coffee, sunblock, bleach, orange juice, pesticides, low cholesterol, everything on this list, stress, obesity, white bread, cookies, crackers, everything yummy, alcohol, artificial flavours, being a woman, being a man, bubble baths, fake nails, lipstick, menstruating, pizza, redbull, tattoos, sex, shaving, third-hand smoke, everything in the whole world except tomatoes and the sun

+ Technology is evil

+ Technology is the best thing ever

+ I should live in the woods

+ We're all the same

+ I'm a unique and special snowflake

+ I'm depressed

+ I have ADD

+ I'm schizophrenic

+ I'm bipolar

+ I'm OCD

+ I have an anxiety disorder

+ I need to be a STRONG POWERFUL INDEPENDENT WOMAN

+ I need 5 jobs

+ Wikipedia is not a valid source of information

+ Everyone is scared so shutup

+ Nikki needs a chandelier

+ There are spies among us

+ Spiders won't eat me in my sleep

+ I need to be famous to accomplish things

+ I need to love more

+ I need to love less

+ I have SARS

+ I'm going to hell

+ Hell is not a real place

+ There's an app for that

+ I need to be kinder

+ I need to be more patient

+ I need to do things for myself

+ Shakespeare was the greatest writer of all time

+ I need to stop being so hard on myself

+ People care

+ No one cares

+ The answer is somewhere else

+ I need to follow my heart

+ I need to listen to my brain

+ The arts are a waste of time

+ I need to recycle more

+ I need to learn how to drive

+ I need to drink more water

+ I need a crutch

+ Drugs are bad

+ I'm stupid

+ I'm smarter than you

+ I need to leave my house

+ There is no cure

+ There is a God

+ There is no God

+ CLEAN ALL THE THINGS

+ I NEED MORE MONEY

+ I NEED MORE EXPERIENCE

+ I NEED MORE CULTURE

+ I NEED MORE THINGS

+ I NEED LESS THINGS

+ I NEED A TOOLBOX

+ I NEED TO TRAVEL

+ I NEED TO HAVE FUN

+ I NEED TO CALM DOWN

+ I'M ABNORMAL

+ I'M NORMAL

+ MONEY

+ SEIZE THE DAY

+ TRAVEL

+ MONEY

+ JOBS

+ INDEPENDENCE

+ MONEY

+ NO SLEEP

+ SEIZE THE DAY

+ MONEY

+ ORGANIZE

+ SETTLE

+ CLEAN ALL THE THINGS

+ MONEY

+ MENTAL DISORDERS

+ DISEASES

+ GOVERNMENT

+ EQUALITY

+ MONEY

+ POWER

+ FAME

+ CLEAN ALL THE THINGS

+ EXTINCTION

+ POTATOES

+ DIY

ETC. FOREVER AND EVER OMG

The Vanishing Act (blindsided)

i.

We pick a day on the calendar and circle it, then count down till we get there. Then we get there. What happens now? What do I do?

We're counting down and recounting and going and continuing on this road and if we just stayed on this train no one would ever know.

No one knows we're here.

Mum?

ii.

Why'd you leave? No one asked you to, except me. But that was a secret. It was a secret wish I made to myself, never even said aloud. Did you know? I could never even touch you. I think I made you cry. I made my grandma cry once. Once again it was my own fear, because I live my life in fear. I'm terrified of everything you loved. I can't plant tulips in the garden, I can't sew, or pick up seashells on the beach. I lost your letters, I lost your card, I lost your scarves, and your wedding dress when we moved. Children scare me because they have things I never did, and never will. And if my child hates me too? And if I vanish just like you? And if I'm still so mad that I don't do it just to spite you, just to end it here? 'Cause I'm the last one, I'm the last kid you ever had.

iii.

Why is life so fragile?

I'm Not Really Sad, I'm Just Trying to Become a Better Person

but then i thought, "what if i never grow up?" i mean legitimately grow up. what if i'm stuck in this awkward year where my parents still do my laundry but i buy my own toothpaste and i take the bus to school and i can't drive and i don't know how to do banking or

there's a fear of growing up, but what if i just don't? what if i'm that person who can't do things for themselves? what if i can't have real relationships with people or if i live with my parents forever and they wash the dishes every night, what if i never learn to be a person, what if all my friends grow up and blow away...

and what happens if i can't get a job? what happens when i forget how to learn? will i have my own set of cutlery will my bed always feel so big and empty who will pay for my retainer to be fixed? who will say "i'm sorry", who will apologize, who will take the blame who will feel bad feel pity who will look down at me and say i'm sorry i failed and will i say i'm sorry i failed i never ever ever grew up i just never never learned i just stuttered and stuttered all my life.

what happens if i never figure out how to cook a chicken? what happens if i forget how to use the toaster? what happens if my hands fall off!? what happens if i forget how to write, do people suddenly become illiterate what happens if that's me, that's me, that's me. what happens if no one reads my book what happens if i don't write a book because my hands fell off and my eyes fell out and i have no goddamn legs. i'm just a box, i'm just a box, i'm a square and is someone sorry now, will someone take the blame, will someone claim responsibility for the empty cardboard box out there on recycling day?

what if i never learn how to tell a good plum from a bad plum or where the potato section is, what if i can't pay my library fines what if i can't find the library? what if i disappoint my grandmother? who is going to write about me? does anyone listen in class? what if i'm the person who forgets how to ride a bike? and i have to learn twice? my legs are gone! i just wanna wear suave shoes again. cardboard legs and cardboard shoes recycle me. i don't wanna cycle, recycle revenge. if i ever go away, who will buy me tea?

what if i have feelings and no one else has so many feelings and i drown other people, what if i drown people with me. like what if who i am is too big. what if i am a giant ocean wave, enveloping bodies and beaches and sand -- what if when i write i actually sound like obasan, the worst novel ever.

and what if i screw it up, what if my feelings consume me. what if i screw it up by being afraid of screwing up.

one day the lights will go out in my room and they will not turn on again. one day the boxes will be filled, they will be moved and loaded onto a van, the house will empty, the walls will be bare. one day we just will not be there.

[all pictures from before i die i want to]

++

I have thought about it and I have decided that my greatest fear is not dying, not not living, not "moving forward", but ignorance. More than being ignorant or naive, I don't want to be stupid. I don't want to think I know things but get them wrong. Socrates wouldn't like that. I never want to drown in my own confusion. I hope that I always strive to be better, be smarter. I hope I never settle for anything less than I deserve. I hope I stop thinking that I don't deserve happiness. I hope I never forget what learning actually is. I hope I never forget the person that I am right now, and the things I believe in. I hope that people never listen to me and think to themselves that I am stupid or that I don't know what I'm talking about. I hope I always present myself as an intelligent, well-read, creative woman. I hope that my intelligence never goes away -- I don't care what I look like, how tall or short I am, where I live -- I hope that I never stop reading and thinking and solving because that is the core of who I am.

Read my book, 'cause it's gonna be written.

it's hard to find it when you knew it

[bon iver - re:stacks]

this song used to remind me of being drunk at 3am on st. laurent. it used to remind me of a skinny bitch who wound my heart in circles. it reminded me of the top of the mountain, of walking home alone in the morning and feeling like nothing. just feeling nothing but [there is no ending to this sentence]

everything that happens is from now on.

okay, so what, i cried on the way home. maybe it was because i was thinking of the rejection letter sitting in my inbox, or maybe it was because the lady who stamped my ticket at penn station was mean. maybe it was because i hate penn station. it was probably because i had my period but it was also because my heart was unwinding slowly and falling loosely at the sides. i’m sorry it’s the most useless thing in the world.

now this song makes me think of sitting on the kitchen floor with a can of pabst blue ribbon and a bottle of gin, singing to a girl because she listened.

this is pouring rain,
this is paralyzed.

my own resolution was to stop being so afraid of having what i want. it wasn’t a new year’s resolution, it was a life’s resolution; to live with no regrets because i had to at least try to achieve everything i wanted and stop being so damn scared of everything. but i’m always so terrified of moving because then the earth might move with me. everyone else is terrified but i don’t know of what. i thought too much about it, was too much like prufrock to follow up when she lay down next to me in the sun. now our feet won’t touch the ground and it’s a big scary leap. it’s too much for me to lean over two inches and kiss you on the mouth. i felt stupid, thinking of all the people who might do it better than me.

you were right, you were right about everything. the best parts are the ones that can’t be talked about. i can’t explain it to anyone. you have no idea what you do to me.

the fountain in the front yard is rusted out

all my love was down

in a frozen ground.

++

the first time i left new york the world seemed so big. penn station loomed above me as i stepped out of the cab, fearful and exhausted. the morning seemed wet and dry; everybody knew where they were going and i trudged down the stairs, down to my doom, the 11 hour train ride away from the iconic days of summer 2009. a mark on the calendar for everyone.

my eyes were open those few days. my mouth was open too, with laughter and wine. other things happened that i’ve already written down, memorized too well. i can’t talk about them. i can talk about them. i didn’t know [redacted] at that time. i just thought i did so i let her and i let myself go. i was surprised by her move. i can’t talk about it.

time, later; months. outside with itchy lips. i wanted to but it physically hurt. i can’t talk about it. itchy lips. we discussed instead.

++

time, later; now. wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday; in arms but not the kind that kill you, just the kind that wound and invoke heartache. i said i wish i had kissed you in the kitchen. i wish i had kissed you on the roof. i wished i had kissed you on the floor in the sun. i wish i had kissed you when you said “everything” and i wish i had kissed you everywhere.

the wait/weight is really quite too much, it's really very perfect it felt long but that's how it was different from every other time with every other person. it was really quite too much and now i know why you said "everything" because sometimes it really just feels like "everything".

it was just different because it meant something. because i waited, because you waited, till there was no other option but to ignite fireworks, finally, and fear and trembling at your touch.

that was it, you totally had me, you can have all of me.

this is not the sound of a new man

or a crispy realization.

it's the sound of the unlocking and the lift away

your love will be

safe with me.